Dennis Fisher with Felix Instruments

“We have developed an instrument to measure the ripeness of avocados”

Avocados have different stages of ripening and growers, shippers, as well as retailers, want to offer an avocado at the perfect stage of ripening to ensure a high-quality eating experience. Felix Instruments is eager to announce it has developed an Avocado Quality Meter to gauge the ripeness of avocados, using a spectrometer. “Simply put, we shine a light into the avocado and the information that comes back, informs us of the dry matter content and ripeness stage,” says Dennis Fisher, Application Scientist at Felix Instruments – Applied Food Science.

“We are excited to have an affordable instrument that avocado growers can use anywhere, from the field to the packing houses to the retailers,” mentioned Fisher. “This instrument can give non-destructive accurate maturity and ripeness data from anywhere that avocado is,” he added.

Measure harvest date and save on labor costs

“We recognized a need for a simple, hardy, field-worthy instrument that can give fast, accurate results to growers about the ripeness of their avocados. Our hope and goal are that the use of one or several of the Avocado Quality Meters will help growers more accurately gauge a harvest date, and in the process, save on unnecessary labor costs. While the initial aim was to decrease loss, the potential to increase profits by giving an accurate shipping estimation is just another bonus to this instrument.”

Based on the original F-750 Produce Quality Meter, the F-751 Avocado Quality Meter is specifically engineered to gauge the ripeness of avocados via dry-matter assessment. Dry matter is what is left when the water is removed from the fruit. It defines the sugar levels, starch levels, and other ripening solids. It gives avocado growers a direct indicator of when to harvest. The instrument comes equipped with Shepard and Hass starter models for data collection. If an avocado variety happens not to be in the Avocado Quality Meter, Felix Instruments offers custom model-building services.

Fruit Maps

The F-751 Avocado Quality Meter is available for pre-order now. Benefits of the Avocado Quality Meter include a more in-depth avocado model for measuring dry matter, as well as a significantly smaller price tag than the more advanced F-750 Produce Quality Meter. The Avocado Quality Meter also comes with the ability to use Fruit Maps, the free interactive harvest map application co-created by Felix Instruments and Central Queensland University.